Chelen Johnson
The goal of SHIPs (Searching Herschel Images for Protostars) is to find and identify stars in the earliest phases of formation in NGC 281, a.k.a. "the pac-man nebula". These stars will help us understand the history of the star formation process in that region.
This experience convinced me even further that I can push myself to learn even more each and every day. I started out feeling very overwhelmed and unprepared last year. I forced myself to work through my unease and wound up much more comfortable. I learned that astronomers are much more down-to-earth than I envisioned a lot of them to be and so many of them are very willing to go out of their way to explain things when we have questions.
I enjoyed the whole week [at my first AAS]. The aspect that was best was connecting with my teammates. The personal contact at this early stage was important.
Also revealed [at the 2012 AAS] was the fact that students rarely mention “creativity” and “imagination” when describing science. This tells me, as a planetarium educator, we must do a better job communicating on how discoveries are made in science.
